Iranian intelligence minister Esmail Khatib ‘eliminated’: Israel’s Katz

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that the country’s forces had killed Iran’s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib, adding that the military was authorised to kill any high-ranking Iranian official in its sights without seeking further approval. “Last night, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Khatib was also eliminated,” Katz said in a statement. The killing of Khatib comes soon after Israel killed Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani, and another powerful figure, Gholam Reza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary force. The US State Department offered a US$10 million reward on Friday for information about Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and other top officials, including Khatib. “The intensity of the strikes in Iran is moving up a notch. We are in the midst of a decisive stretch,” Katz said. Katz also said that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had authorised the military to target “any senior Iranian official for whom the intelligence and operational circle has been closed, without the need for additional approval”. “We will continue to thwart and hunt them all down,” he said. “Over the course of this day as well, significant surprises are expected in all arenas that will raise to a new level the war we are waging against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.” In a statement announcing Khatib’s killing, the Israeli military said he had “played a significant role during the recent protests throughout Iran, both with regards to the arrest and killing of protesters as well as shaping the regime’s intelligence assessment”. “In addition to his activities targeting the State of Israel, Khatib led the Ministry of Intelligence’s terrorist activities against Israeli and American targets around the world,” it added, including during the current war between the arch-foes. The US Treasury had sanctioned Khatib in 2022, over the Intelligence Ministry “engaging in cyber-enabled activities against the United States and its allies.” Khatib “directs several networks of cyber threat actors involved in cyber espionage and ransomware attacks in support of Iran’s political goals”, the Treasury said at the time. ‘Serious human rights abuses’ In another round of sanctions, the Treasury also called the Intelligence Ministry “one of the Iranian government’s main security services which is responsible for serious human rights abuses”. “Under his leadership, the [Intelligence Ministry] has cracked down on a large number of human rights defenders, women’s rights activists, journalists, filmmakers and members of religious minority groups,” it said. In June 2025, Khatib claimed Iran seized documents from Israel’s nuclear programme. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency later said that this “seems to refer” to the country’s Soreq Nuclear Research Centre. Soreq, located 20km (12 miles) south of Tel Aviv, is a national laboratory for nuclear science established in 1958. Israel, whose undeclared atomic weapons programme makes it the only country in the Middle East believed to have nuclear bombs, has not acknowledged any such Iranian operation. Khatib was a Shiite cleric who worked in a variety of positions in Iran’s judiciary and the Intelligence Ministry. He served in the Revolutionary Guard in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and was wounded in combat. Iran did not immediately acknowledge Khatib’s death as Iranian state television aired live footage of a funeral procession for Larijani, Soleimani and others in Tehran. Thousands thronged to the processional as Larijani’s body and that of his son, also killed in an Israeli strike, paraded past on a bed of a semitruck adorned with images of the dead. People waved Iranian flags at the funeral. Iran has increasingly turned towards large, pro-government events in the war as Israeli air strikes continue to kill the theocracy’s top leaders, including the late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, when the war began on February 28. A senior Israeli military intelligence official said Soleimani was killed while he was hiding in a tent hidden in a wooded area under some trees. The Basij head was killed with his top staff in the strike. Such strikes, which had killed many members of Iran’s leadership, were meant to send a message that “they have no safe place”, the official said. The account could not be independently verified. The official declined to say how Israel located Larijani, but he said, “Every time they decide to appear publicly, it’s a big advantage for us.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a classified intelligence assessment. There was no immediate comment or confirmation from Iran, which had responded with fury and vows of revenge to the death of Larijani. “Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Iranian army chief Amir Hatami said in a statement. Despite losing its ayatollah of nearly four decades as well as Larijani, a key pillar of the Islamic republic, the Revolutionary Guard has remained defiant. The Guard, the ideological arm of the military, said on Wednesday it had launched missiles at central Israel as retaliation for Larijani’s death and warned of more to come. The “pure blood of this great martyr … will be a source of honour, power and national awakening against the front of global arrogance”, the powerful military force said in a statement. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan lashed out at Israel, condemning its “political assassinations” of Tehran’s leaders as “illegal activities outside the normal laws of war”. Israel has also vowed to target Israel’s new supreme leader, who has not appeared in public since the ruling clerics chose him to succeed his father. “We don’t know about Mojtaba Khamenei, we don’t hear him, we don’t see him, but I can tell you one thing: we will track him down, find him, and neutralise him,” military spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin told reporters. Reporting by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Reuters

Iranian intelligence minister Esmail Khatib ‘eliminated’: Israel’s Katz

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Khatib is the third top Iranian official to be killed in two days as Israel authorises military to shoot on sight

Khatib is the third top Iranian official to be killed in two days as Israel authorises military to shoot on sight